August 12, 2015 - The company managing Clinton's private server is worried they will be blamed for a change of policy that results in the deletion of Clinton's emails.

Platte River Networks (PRN) has been managing Clinton’s private email server. According to a New York Post article in September 2016, around August 2015, PRN wants to double check their behavior after media reports that the FBI is investigating Clinton’s server. “Company execs scrambled to find proof that Clinton’s reps had months earlier asked to cut the retention of emails from 60 days to 30 days.”

Paul Combetta (left) Bill Thornton (right) (Credit: AP)

On August 12, 2015, PRN employee Bill Thornton writes, “OK, we may want to work with our attorneys to draft up something that absolves us of that question. I can only assume that will be the first and last question for us, ‘Why did we have backups of the system since the time of inception, then decide to cut them back to just 60 or 30 days?’ If we can get that from them in writing, I would feel a whole lot better about this.”

The other PRN employee who has been actively managing the Clinton account with Thornton, Bill Combetta, responds that he believes the request was made to PRN by phone.

An email exchange between the two on the same topic several days later will make clear that the Clinton representatives are employees of Clinton Executive Services Corp. (CESC) the Clinton family company that has been paying PRN. (The New York Post, 9/18/2016)

August 17, 2015 - A State Department official tells the FBI about 1,000 previously unknown emails between Clinton and David Petraeus.

Obama announces that he will nominate current CIA Director Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense, and General David Petraeus as the next director of the CIA on April 11, 2011. (Credit: CNN)

An unnamed State Department official who works in the Office of Information Programs and Services (IPS) is interviewed by the FBI on this day. According to a later FBI summary of the interview, she claims that around August 10, 2015, just a week before the interview, “[redacted] from Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) called [her] and told her Centcom records showed approximately 1,000 work-related emails between Clinton’s personal email and General David Petraeus, former commander of Centcom and former director of the CIA. Most of those 1,000 emails were not believed to be included in the 30,000 emails that IPS was reviewing. Out of the 30,000 emails, IPS only had a few emails from or related to Petraeus…” She “recommended the FBI should talk with [redacted] regarding the alleged 1,000 emails between Clinton and Petraeus.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/23/2016)

On September 25, 2015, the New York Times will report on the existence of 19 work-related emails between Clinton and Petraeus sent in January 2009 that were not turned over when Clinton gave what she said was all her 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department in December 2014. Since that time, neither these 19 emails nor any other of the alleged 1,000 emails between them have been made public.

August 18, 2015 - Colin Powell suggests everything Clinton touches "she kinda screws up with hubris."

Jeffrey Leeds (Credit: Leeds Equity Partners)

An email dated August 18, 2015, where Powell expresses to Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds that Clinton’s email problems show how capable she is of causing problems for herself, as well as for others and their email usage. “They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin’ record rules. I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine. … Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.” (Washington Post, 09/14/16)

The hacker website DCLeaks.com will publish Colin Powell’s hacked emails on September 13, 2016.

August 21, 2015 - An email reveals that every employee of the company managing Clinton's private server can access the server through the Internet.

PRN grew exponentially in 2015, including a number of new employees. (Credit: Platte River Networks)

Paul Combetta, an employee of Platte River Networks (PRN), sends an email to Leif McKinley, an employee of Datto, Inc. PRN is managing Clinton’s private server, and Datto has been subcontracted by PRN to provide back-up for the server. Combetta writes: “We are trying to tighten down every possible security angle on this customer. It occurs to us that anyone at PRN with access to the Datto Partner Portal (i.e. everyone here) could potentially access this device via the remote web feature. Can we set up either two-factor authentication, or move this device to a separate partner account, or some other method (disable remote web access altogether?) to allow only who we permit on our end to access this device via the Internet?” (US Congress, 9/12/2016)

On May 14, 2015, a photo of PRN employees was posted to their website and suggests the number of employees working there at the time to be approximately 28.  (Platte River Networks, 5/14/15)

In September 2016, after the email is publicly released, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R) will comment, “If I understand the email correctly, every single employee of PRN could have accessed some of the most highly classified national security information that’s ever been breached at the State Department.” (US Congress, 9/13/2016)

August 22, 2015 - Clinton’s campaign spokesperson privately urges Clinton give a blanket denial that she ever sent classified information through her private server because anything less could open her to charges that she broke the law.

Brian Fallon (Credit: MSNBC)

Clinton’s top campaign officials are debating a statement Clinton would make on her use of an email server in her home. Campaign spokesperson Brian Fallon writes in an email, “We should not think it is fine to find something that ‘should have been classified at the time.’ Our position is that no such material exists, else it could be said she mishandled classified info.” The email is sent to Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta, as well as Clinton aides Jen Palmieri, Robby Mook, and three others. (WikiLeaks, 10/10/2016)

After the email is leaked in October 2016, Bloomberg News will note that “Fallon’s [email] came just days after Clinton gave a vague answer on the erasure of emails that her lawyers deemed not to be work-related. Asked if she’d wiped her server, she responded: ‘Like with a cloth or something?’”

Additionally, “It wasn’t immediately clear when or if Clinton delivered the statement suggested by Fallon, which would have come after months of downplaying the issue. Four days after Fallon wrote the email, Clinton said using the server ‘clearly wasn’t the best choice. I’m confident that this process will prove that I never sent nor received any email that was marked classified.” (Bloomberg News, 10/13/2016)

September 1, 2015 - The company that manages Clinton's server won't let Congressional investigators interview its employees.

Ken Eichner (Credit: public domain)

Platte River Networks (PRN) is the computer company that has been managing Clinton’s private server. In August 2015, the Senate Homeland Security Committee asked PRN for a staff-level briefing on the server, and got one later that month.

In early September 2015, Congressional investigators communicate with Ken Eichner, a lawyer working for PRN, asking to interview five employees in Denver, Colorado, where PRN is located. But on September 17, 2015, Eichner writes in an email, “I am going to respectfully decline [permission for] any interviews.”

In September 2015, some PRN employees are interviewed by the FBI, but details of that remain unknown. In November 2015, it will be reported that PRN isn’t cooperating with Congressional investigators at all, and isn’t allowing Datto, Inc., a company it subcontracted to help back up Clinton’s server, to cooperate either. (Politico, 11/13/2015)

Ken Eichner has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” for more than a decade and named by 5280 Magazine as one of Colorado’s top criminal lawyers. (Super Lawyers) (5280 Magazine)

September 1, 2015 - Employees at the company managing Clinton's server are interviewed by the FBI.

Andy Boian (Credit: public domain)

Platte River Network (PRN) is the company that has been managing Clinton’s private server since June 2013. In November 2015, Politico will report that the FBI interviewed some PRN employees in September 2015. This will be confirmed by PRN spokesperson Andy Boian. The same month, PRN turns down a request for the Senate Homeland Security Committee to interview five of its employees.

It isn’t known how many employees are interviewed by the FBI or who they are. The FBI Clinton email investigation’s final report released in September 2016 will make no mention of any PRN interviews in 2015 at all (though there could be mentions that are redacted).

However, it will later be revealed that PRN only had two employees doing the work on the Clinton server, and one of them was Paul Combetta, so it seems likely he would be interviewed. But the FBI report will say that Combetta was only interviewed twice, both times in 2016. It will later be revealed that Combetta was the person who deleted and then wiped all of Clinton’s emails from her server. (Politico, 11/13/2015)

September 3, 2015 - A Clinton advisor speculates that Bryan Pagliano wants to plead the Fifth because he “retrieved all our emails” for someone, possibly a Clinton Foundation official.

Maura Pally (Credit: Sylvain Gaboury / Patrick McMullan)

Longtime Clinton advisor Neera Tanden emails Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. The subject heading is “Re: This Bryan Pagliano situation.” Most of their email exchange appears to be about other matters, but Tanden makes the comment, “Bryan was the one who retrieved all our emails for Maura to read. Maybe that is why he’s avoiding testifying.” (WikiLeaks, 11/3/2016)

This email comes one day after it is first reported that Pagliano is going to plead the Fifth before a Congressional committee that wants to question him about his role managing Clinton’s private email server when she was secretary of state. (The New York Times, 9/5/2015)

It is not clear who “Maura” is. However, the only Maura in Clinton’s inner circle at the time is Maura Pally. She was deputy counsel on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. In 2013, she began working for the Clinton Foundation. She was the interim CEO of the foundation from January until April 2015, and she has been vice president of programs at the foundation since then. (Politico, 5/30/2013) (Politico, 4/27/2015)

The FBI’s summary of Pagliano’s December 2015 interview will make no mention of anything like this. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/23/2016)

Perhaps that is because the email will not be publicly known until it is released by WikiLeaks in November 2016.

September 5, 2015 - Clinton publicly encourages cooperation with Congressional investigators, but doesn't actually always do so.

Clinton campaigns in Portsmouth, NH with Senator Jeanne Shaheen on September 5, 2015. (Credit: Cheryl Senter / The Associated Press)

On September 2, 2015, it was reported that Clinton’s computer technician Bryan Pagliano would take the Fifth and refuse questions from a House committee. On September 5, 2015, Clinton says in response, “I would very much urge anybody who is asked to cooperate to do so.” (The New York Times, 9/5/2015)

But in November 2015, it will be reported that two computer companies involved with Clinton’s private server, Platte River Networks and Datto, Inc., are refusing to cooperate with Congressional investigators. Furthermore, the Clinton campaign will fail to comment on whether Clinton’s lawyers have encouraged these two companies to cooperate. (Politico, 11/13/2015)

September 7, 2015 - Colin Powell doesn't wish to get involved in Clinton's email woes, despite her teams efforts to "drag him in."

Lawrence Wilkerson (Credit: public domain)

In another email, former Secretary of State Colin Powell complained to Lawrence Wilkerson, his former chief of staff.

Powell writes, “[Clinton] and her mishandling of this has really given her a major problem I do not wish to get involved in, despite the best efforts of her team to drag me in.”

A day later, on September 8, 2015, Clinton makes a formal apology  on ABC News for using a private server for all of her official business while she was secretary of state. (Politico, 09/14/16)

The hacker website DCLeaks.com will publish Colin Powell’s hacked emails on September 13, 2016.

September 20, 2015 - Clinton claims she is being more transparent about her private server than "anybody else ever has been."

Clinton appears on Face the Nation with John Dickerson, on September 20, 2015. (Credit: CBS)

In an interview with CBS News journalist John Dickerson, Clinton is told that her use of a private server has never been done before, “not at this level, not solely a server just for you.”

Clinton replies, “It was done by others. And let me just say that, yes, when I did it, it was allowed, it was above board. And now I’m being as transparent as possible, more than anybody else ever has been.” (CBS News, 9/20/2015)

October 2, 2015 - The company that makes a back-up of Clinton's server data is given permission to share the data with the FBI.

Platte River Networks (PRN) has been managing Clinton’s private server since June 2013, and since that time they used the service of another company, Datto, Inc., to make back-ups of the data on the server. As a result, they need PRN’s permission to share data.

Austin McChord, founder and CEO of Datto, Inc. (Credit: Erik Traufmann / Hearst Connecticut Media)

On this day, David Kendall, Clinton’s personal lawyer, and PRN agree to allow Datto to turn over the data from the backup server to the FBI. This is according to an unname person familiar with Datto’s storage, quoted in McClatchy Newspapers four days later.

Datto says in a statement that “with the consent of our client and their end user, and consistent with our policies regarding data privacy, Datto is working with the FBI to provide data in conjunction with its investigation.”

However, according to McClatchy Newspapers, the unnamed source says “that Platte River had set up a 60-day retention policy for the backup server, meaning that any emails to which incremental changes were made at least 60 days prior would be deleted and ‘gone forever.’ While the server wouldn’t have been ‘wiped clean,’ the source said, any underlying data likely would have been written over and would be difficult to recover.” (McClatchy Newspapers, 10/6/2015)

It appears that the FBI does get data from Datto over the next couple of weeks, because an October 23, 2015 letter from Datto to the FBI will refer to some Datto back-up data that is now in the FBI’s possession. (US Congress, 9/12/2016)

A Datto back-up device was attached to the server, and the data was backed up to the “cloud” as well. It is unknown if the FBI ever gets useful data from the cloud copy.

October 3, 2015 - The FBI picks up the most recent Clinton email server, which is still being used by Clinton.

An inside look at the Equinix facility in Secaucus, New Jersey. (Credit: Chang W. Lee / New York Time)

Although the mainstream media in 2015 generally mentions only one Clinton email server, there actually are two in existence at this time. Both are located at an Equinix data center in Secaucus, New Jersey, and both are managed by Platte River Networks (PRN).

Clinton’s emails and other data had been transferred from the old server (which the FBI will later call the “Pagliano Server”) to the new server (which the FBI will call the “PRN Server”) in late June 2013, leaving the old server mostly empty but still running. On August 12, 2015, the FBI only picked up the old server for analysis.

A September 2016 FBI report will explain, “At the time of the FBI’s acquisition of the Pagliano Server, Williams & Connolly [the law firm of Clinton’s personal lawyer David Kendall] did not advise the US government of the existence of the additional equipment associated with the Pagliano Server, or that Clinton’s clintonemail.com emails had been migrated to the successor PRN Server remaining at Equinix. The FBI’s subsequent investigation identified this additional equipment and revealed the email migration.”

The report will continue, “As a result, on October 3, 2015, the FBI obtained, via consent provided by Clinton through Williams & Connolly, both the remaining Pagliano Server equipment and the PRN Server, which had remained operational and was hosting Clinton’s personal email account until it was disconnected and produced to the FBI.” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

October 16, 2015 - A former FBI official claims that many FBI agents are upset about Obama’s comments.

A graphic that appears during Megyn Kelly’s interview with James Kallstrom. (Credit: Fox News)

Former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom is interviewed by Fox News reporter Megyn Kelly about President Obama’s comments on October 8, 2015 regarding the FBI’s Clinton email investigation. He says, “I know some of the agents, Megyn.  I know some of the supervisors and I know the senior staff.  And they’re P.O.ed [pissed off], I mean, no question. This is like someone driving a nail, another nail into the coffin of the criminal justice system and what the public thinks about it.”

He adds that he doesn’t think the FBI investigators will allow Obama’s comments to affect them. And he concludes, “[I]f it’s a big case and it’s pushed under the rug, they won’t take that sitting down.” (Fox News, 10/16/2015)

October 16, 2015 - Clinton had access to a secure cell phone when she traveled, but usually used her unsecure BlackBerry instead.

Clinton’s State Department jet offered phone lines for secure and non secure calls. (Credit: CNN)

While interviewed under oath by the House Benghazi Committee, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin reveals that when Clinton traveled a secure cell phone usually traveled with her. “We didn’t need to use it very often because she was always within close enough proximity with an actual hard line secure phone, but now that you’ve asked me, I actually do remember that on occasion there was a secure cell phone.” She ends up admitting that Clinton traveled with the phone most of the time. Sometimes it was carried by Abedin, and sometimes by other Clinton aides. (House Benghazi Committee, 10/16/2015)

October 16, 2015 - Clinton had trouble with her secure fax machines. so she only used them "very little."

Huma Abedin (center) enters a hearing held by the House Benghazi Committee on October 16, 2015. (Credit: Jacquelyn Martin / The Associated Press)

While interviewed under oath by the House Benghazi Committee, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin says that Clinton “absolutely used the secure phones” installed in her houses in Washington, DC, and Chappaqua, New York. However, “The secure fax was deployed very little, mostly because we often had technical challenges receiving the faxes. She sometimes struggled with the equipment and…”

Abedin is interrupted with a recollection of an email in which she wrote, “Don’t ever use the fax machine.”

Abedin replies, “Yes. It was so maddening to try and execute it without there being some challenge, so, you know, secure faxes, we pretty quickly gave up on. And when she was in Washington, it was very convenient to have a pouch delivered. She often had a pouch delivered anyway. She lived in very close proximity to the State Department so we would just ask those documents to be included in the pouch.” Documents were delivered by courier to Clinton in Chappaqua as well. (House Benghazi Committee, 10/16/2015)

October 16, 2015 - Huma Abedin is interviewed under oath; she claims she knew Clinton exclusively used a private email address, but very few other State Department officials did.

Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin is interviewed under oath by the House Benghazi Committee. She makes the following claims in her testimony:

Huma Abedin arrives to testify at a hearing before the House Benghazi Committee on Oct. 16, 2015. (Credit: Saul Loee / Agence France Presse / Getty Images)

• While she was at the State Department she was aware that Clinton exclusively used a personal email account for all her email communications. However, although many higher-ups in the State Department know Clinton used a personal email account, none of them knew that she used it exclusively.
• Asked if she ever had any conversation with Clinton “about using personal email versus official email” prior to Clinton becoming secretary of state, Abedin replies, “It doesn’t mean it’s out of the realm of possibility, but I don’t recall any specific conversations with her.”
• When asked if she was aware that Clinton’s email account was maintained on a private server, she replies, “I know it was an email address that was provided by the IT [information technology] person in President Clinton’s office. [She later identifies this as Justin Cooper.] I’m not certain that I was aware of what server it was on or not on.” However, she says she was “absolutely” certain it wasn’t on a State Department server.
• She had three email accounts: a state.gov one, a Yahoo mail one, and a clintonemail.com one.
• Anyone who asked for Clinton’s private email address was given it, and she doesn’t recall a time when a person was denied it.
• 

  Sidney Blumenthal’s memoir of his four years as a presidential assistant to Bill Clinton. (Credit: public domain)

  She knew Sid Blumenthal well from her earlier work under the Clintons going back to when Bill Clinton was president, she never saw him at the State Department and didn’t have communication with him by phone or email. She was only dimly aware of how often he emailed Clinton because she would print out his emails for Clinton sometimes.

• She had a “top secret” security clearance while she worked at the State Department but it lapsed shortly after she left the department in early 2013 and she doesn’t have one anymore. (House Benghazi Committee, 10/16/2015)

October 16, 2015 - Clinton's lawyer gives the FBI two BlackBerrys that prove useless to the FBI's Clinton investigation.

David Kendall (Credit: Agence France Presse / Getty Images)

On this day, Williams & Connolly, the law firm of Clinton’s personal lawyer David Kendall, gives two BlackBerrys to the FBI and indicates they might contain or have previously contained emails from Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. But FBI forensic analysis will find no evidence that either BlackBerry were ever connected to one of Clinton’s personal servers or contained any of her emails. The two BlackBerrys don’t even contain SIM cards or Secure Digital (SD) cards.

The FBI determines that Clinton used 11 BlackBerrys while secretary of state, and two more using the same phone number, but these two BlackBerrys are not any of those. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

October 19, 2015 - An invoice shows the company managing Clinton's server has billed Clinton for legal and PR expenses, but Clinton allegedly never gets the invoice.

A snippet from the invoice published by Complete Colorado on October 19, 2015. (Credit: Todd Shepherd / Complete Colorado) (Used with express permission from CompleteColorado.com. Do not duplicate or republish.)

On October 19, 2015, Complete Colorado reports that Platte River Networks (PRN), the company managing Clinton’s private server, drafted an invoice to Clinton’s representatives, asking to be reimbursed for legal and public relations (PR) expenses relating to the Clinton email controversy.

The invoice totals at least $44,000, but it may be incomplete. The expenses were incurred from late July 2015 to mid-September 2015. The only PRN employee mentioned by name in the invoice is Paul Combetta. In September 2016, it will be revealed that he was one of two PRN employees handling Clinton’s server, and he deleted all of Clinton’s emails from the server. (Complete Colorado, 10/19/2015)

However, on November 13, 2015, Politico will report that the Clinton campaign says Clinton is not paying PRN’s legal and PR bills, and Clinton never received the invoice. (Politico, 11/13/2015)

October 21, 2015 - Democrats on the House Benghazi Committee release the closed door testimony of Clinton's former chief of staff Cheryl Mills.

Her testimony took place on September 3, 2015. Only minor redactions are made. They do this without the permission of the Republicans heading the committee, claiming they were forced to do it “in order to correct the public record after numerous out-of-context and misleading Republican leaks.” This comes just one day before Clinton is due to testify in public before the committee. (House Benghazi Committee, 10/21/2015) (House Benghazi Committee, 10/21/2015)